


Damn the Dark, Damn the Light

by LadyJanelly



Category: Big Valley, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:16:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyJanelly/pseuds/LadyJanelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a hunger in Heath, deep and low. For all that he tries to put it out of his mind, sometimes it’s just gotta be fed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damn the Dark, Damn the Light

It’s the third Saturday of the month. For the boys of the Bar T, that means payday and the night off. Payday means a trip into town in search of cheap women, hard liquor and lucky cards.

Heath is there with them, clean-shaven and smelling like soap. He leans against the bar, blue eyes drifting over the room. The whisky glass is cool in his hand, but the drink burns like fire goin down. 

One of the saloon girls flits up to him, all soft skin, frills and perfume. She smiles at him, even though he ain’t wavin his money around like the others. He smiles back, shakes his head and shoos her along. It ain’t a woman he’s lookin for--not lush curves nor long hair.

His eyes graze across a tall cowboy sittin at a table towards the back and he feels the sinful warmth comin’ up from his belly. The man’s got a good shape, strong shoulders and an easy way of sprawlin in his chair, like he ain't got a care. From this distance Heath can tell his eyes are some light color and his short beard catches the lanterns’ glow with a coppery shine. He looks like he’s a stranger to neither hard work nor soap and water, and that suits Heath fine. 

It’s just that it’s the right thing to do, Heath tells himself as he forces his gaze to move on to somethin else, knowin he’ll be lookin that way again soon. It ain’t that he’d be this way if he had a choice, but he swore to God an’ all the saints he’d never leave some woman with his bastard in her belly like his daddy done to momma. No decent woman’d have him either--he’s got nothin to give, no name, no stake, no spread. Between what he sends back home to Strawberry and the upkeep on himself and his pony there ain’t nothin left for a wife an family, nothin at all.

It’s instead of that wife he’ll never have that he looks over at the cowboy again. Even in his own head it feels like a lie, feels like wickedness. 

Then the cowboy glances back his way, and Heath knows he’s been caught, and he’s glad of it. They drink a while longer. Heath gets a second shot from the bartender and the cowboy pours for himself from the bottle at his table. After a bit, Heath figures it’s up to him to make the first move, and he tips his head towards the stairs, quick enough that if the cowboy takes offense he can say it weren’t nothin. 

“I’ll take a room,” Heath tells the barkeep, and when the man slides him the key and tells him the room he leans forward like he didn’t hear right and gestures the number as he asks “Four, you say?”

If that ain’t clear enough, he don’t know what would be. He wants to look over, see if the cowboy’s gonna join him, but he’s half afraid of spookin him. 

Upstairs, the sounds of busy girls and happy ranch hands spill out of the rooms and into the hallway. Heath finds the room and opens the door. The place ain’t much--a bed and a chair and not much room for anything else. The room’s only kerosene lantern sits on the window sill. 

Heath takes off his gun belt, hangs it off the back of the chair and settles down to wait. He don’t have a time piece, but he figures it’s half an hour, maybe more before the knob on his door turns. The cowboy he’d had his hopes on is standing outside. The man glances around the room, and then back to Heath.

“I readin you wrong?” he asks, and the flare of his nostrils, the sliver of white all around his green eyes, it makes Heath think of a horse that’s caught a strange scent--not quite spooked, but wary.

“Nope,” says Heath, “I reckon you aren’t.”

The other man nods. Up close, he’s younger than Heath would have thought--maybe only a year or two older than Heath himself. They’re almost of a height, close enough that they look each other straight in the eye. The man has a smattering of freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. There’s a place on one eyebrow where a scar cuts through the hair, and that freckled nose has been broken a time or two. He’s got creases at the corners of his eyes from too many days starin into the sun and frown lines that Heath don’t ever expect to fade. 

Still, he’s the best lookin’ man Heath’d expect to have go up to a room with the likes of him, for the purpose of sinnin’ and all.

“Name’s Heath,” Heath says as the man takes off his hat and starts workin the knot of the bandana around his throat. 

“Ross,” says the stranger, “Jensen Ross, or JR. You call me Jenny and we’re gonna have a brawl up here.”

Heath nods and watches until the man gets to the buttons of his shirt. “Give you a hand with that?” he asks, watching to see if Ross takes offense at the offer. 

Ross gives him another one of those wary looks, and then leans back against the door, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “Suit yourself,” he says like he don’t care at all, but when Heath comes close, he can feel the heat comin’ off of that freckled skin, hear the way Jensen draws his breath in like he wants a taste of Heath’s scent. 

Heath, he takes him a good whiff too, breathes in the scent of horses and saddle leather, wood smoke and good whiskey, soap and sweat and man. 

Those buttons are mighty ornery, and Heath has to stop himself just rippin them open. Ain’t like he could afford a new shirt and he expects Jensen don’t have money to throw away on a waste like that neither. Once he’s inside though, boy howdy, all that skin’s a sight for his hungry eyes, pale where it’s been kept from the sun but still peppered with freckles, dark against the light. 

Heath leans in and licks across Jensen's collar bone, tasting the salt of him. After a moment of indecision, tryin to choose if he should keep moseying down or work his way up, Heath slides his hand around the back of Jensen's neck and leans in for a sample of those lips. 

He gets another flash of the white of Jensen's eyes as he jerks away. Head-shy, Heath thinks, and he ain’t never met a horse that was beat so bad he couldn’t gentle that fear out of it. He figures this handsome cowboy can’t be that much different so he don’t fight Jensen none, lets him pull back, lets him know he ain’t gonna be forced to nothin, and feels those strong shoulders start to ease up.

Heath gets the flannel shirt off of Jensen and his own he just yanks off over his head, not wantin to wait the time it would take to get all those buttons open. He sees a twitch at Jensen's lips, the closest to a smile he’s seen yet. He wishes it was easier, that there were words that could be said between them for what he wants to do, maybe what Jensen wants to do. Instead they’re fumblin at each other, fingers searchin for what their lips can’t say, even in this sort of company.

Jensen's hand finds its way to cup the front of Heath’s fly, and it’s all he can do to not buck and bite like a wild thing. It’s been too damn long with just him and his hand, too long without a chance for this fire to burn him clean.

“I got--” Heath grinds out, “I got that bed for a reason, if you want to use it.” 

He feels Jensen's jerky nod, and it’s good to know he ain’t the only one having a hard time puttin one though behind the other here. 

They end up side by side on top of the blanket, too close for Heath not to start up the kissin again, and he figures it’s too soon to be pushin so he slides down, hesitates a bit to see if Jensen's gonna object to bein handled.

Those green eyes just keep watchin’ him, the wary look replaced by a fire that lights something in Heath too.

Much as he wants to go divin right in, Heath makes himself go slow, teasin until Jensen knows this is what he wants, not just somethin Heath’s doin to him. He runs his calloused hands over the soft skin of Jensen's lower belly, along the front of his hips. He can’t imagine any woman being softer, any sight more beautiful than that lean body twistin against the sheets like a lazy sidewinder. 

Jensen lifts his rump off the bed and Heath strips the pants off of him, kneels by the bed and pries the boots off of his feet. Jensen's face is unreadable as he watches Heath pull off his own boots and trousers. They remain like that for a moment, naked as they were born, and then Heath blows out the lantern and crawls into that narrow bed, his skin against another man’s, sin and shame forgotten.

The moonlight through the window washes the color away. Jensen's hand on his hip guides Heath and they lie against each other, face to face. Heath rocks forward, his nethers pressin against Jensen's. 

“God damn,” Jensen whispers, but he doesn’t sound anything like angry. “God damn, Heath.”

And something in that one word, hearing his own name from Jensen's lips, spoken like it breaks the man loose, does a weirdness to his head. This ain’t nothin but a roll in the hay, despite the luxury of sheets. Can’t be more, and still it sets some part of Heath to aching something fierce.

Jensen's breath hitches and he leans in, touching his forehead to Heath’s. Hands wander as they touch each other, all those places a man should never touch another man. They push and pull until they find that rhythm, like rolling with a horse’s trot. 

Jensen finds his moment, and Heath watches his face twist like it’s too much to bear, more than a person can take feelin. 

“God damn,” Jensen groans, and Heath’s undone, nothing left of him but the roaring river of his own climax.

They lie there, one beside the other, skin stuck with sweat and other less mentionable things, for longer than any saloon girl would have allowed. Their wind comes back and their blood settles. Jensen stands and stretches, the moonlight on his skin in all the places Heath would like to be. He turns and pulls on his pants. 

Jensen's back, it ain’t a pretty sight--scars crossin over scars like the shadows of a tree on the snow. If Heath’s any expert--and he reckons he is--he’d guess them to be a year or less old. He wants to run his fingers over now that he knows they’re there, wants to sooth that hurt that’s healed and gone. 

It don’t take a lot of schoolin to guess Jensen ain't the kind of man to take anyone’s pity, so he leaves it alone, in touch and word both.

In all his clothes, Jensen lays himself down against Heath again, his face turned away, his arm thrown over Heath’s chest.

“You reckon you got the next third Saturday of the month off too?” he asks. His body looks lax, but Heath can feel the poundin of his heart.

“Barrin some disaster or drawin the short straw on who watches over the ranch that night,” Heath says, and he’s glad Jensen said something because he wouldn’t count on himself to have the nerve.

“I figure I’ll get the room next time,” Jensen says, “If you’re wantin to share it with me.”

“Yeah,” Heath says, “I’m wantin.” 

Heath doesn’t catch any sleep. He doesn’t think Jensen does either. Couple hours before sun-up, Jensen stands again, pulls on his boots and belt and hat.

“Gotta get back,” he says, and turns his back to go.

“Third Saturday,” Heath says, and Jensen pauses long enough to repeat the words back to him.

The ride back to the Bar T seems a heck of a lot longer than the ride to town had been. Some of the other men are beside him, but Heath puts enough distance between them that nobody tries talkin too much. 

The foreman is divvying up the mail when Heath gets back to the bunkhouse, and catches Heath on his way to his bed.

“Letter for you, Thomson,” the man says, and Heath feels a knot of dread deep in his belly. With fingers suddenly clumsy with worry, he works open the envelope and takes the single piece of paper out.

Heath,  
Your Momma is sick, and asking for you.   
Please come home,  
Rachael.

“I gotta go,” Heath says. He can’t see anything but his aunt’s neat script. Nothing else matters. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.” 

“I can’t keep this job for you,” the foreman says, and Heath nods.

“I can’t ask you to.” 

He’s packed and on a fresh horse inside of an hour. He doesn’t think of the green-eyed cowboy until he’s halfway to Strawberry, and he’s sorry, mighty sorry, but there’s nothin for it. It ain’t like he even knows what ranch Jensen works at, and sendin a letter would sure as shootin bring the wrong kind of attention his way.

He tries to tell himself it ain’t nothin’ at all, that one night spent alone, more or less, ain’t gonna make that much difference.

He knows he’s a liar.


End file.
